Totti suffers serious knee injury

DPA Milan, April 20 (DPA) Roma captain Francesco Totti faces a lengthy layoff following a knee injury suffered Saturday during a Serie A game his side drew 1-1 with guests Livorno. “I felt a crack. I am quite worried,” Totti said as he limped toward a friend’s car after leaving a Rome clinic.

Sky TV reported that Totti, 31, damaged the cruciate ligament in his right knee.

Roma’s chief medical officer Mario Brozzi said that doctors will decide Sunday if the striker needs to undergo surgery.

Brozzi said Totti “sustained a contusion to his knee and felt pain but decided to continue playing. There is a high risk that his season is over.”

Totti was stretchered off the pitch late in the first half, grimacing with pain after firing a firm shot from outside the area.

The striker is Roma’s top scorer with 14 goals in the current season and won the European Golden Boot in 2007 with 26 goals.

He retired from the Italian national team in 2006 after winning the World Cup with the Azzurri squad.

In February of the same year Totti suffered a major fracture in his lower fibula that sidelined him in the last part of the Serie A season.